


the rain falling on the sunshine

by hardlygolden



Category: The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-World War I, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 03:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17035847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/pseuds/hardlygolden
Summary: In the garden; after the war.





	the rain falling on the sunshine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dani/gifts).



> "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary.

As with so many things in her life, Mary Lennox reflected, this had been _much_ easier when they were children. Of course, back then, Dickon had been the one pushing the chair, instead of pacing behind her like a silent shadow. 

Colin half-turned around to look at her. “I’m surprised this chair still works.”

“I’m surprised you still fit in it,” she retorted - except she wasn’t really - he was far too thin.

It was actually easier than it had been in the past to navigate their way to the garden - when she'd opened up Misslethwaite as a convalescent home for returned soldiers, she'd had them redo the pathways and make ramps so that all the recovering soldiers could benefit from the fresh air blowing off the moor. 

At the time, it had never occurred to her that Colin would be one of the soldiers in need of convalescing. 

Dr Craven had been a surprising help throughout this whole endeavour - it had seemed to give him a renewed sense of purpose, and he actually was the one who had worked with Mary to plan the home, when she'd returned from her nursing training.

The specialist from London was quietly optimistic that Colin would walk again - and Colin himself was loudly optimistic. It was still early days, though, as Mary kept reminding him. Of course she hoped he would recover quickly, but she was also trying to be realistic. She'd watched a lot of soldiers in their recovery, and it seemed to always take longer than they'd like. Still, each day she could see the colour returning to his cheeks, and each day she prayed for a second miracle. After all, he had walked before in this garden. Perhaps it was as magical as they'd thought it was when they were children. 

In the meantime, since he had so much time to rest, Colin had begun writing his book. "For all that the war was so awful," he said, "it gave me a lot to think about - about how the magic works, and what it means to be human and alive in the midst of so much death and danger."

Colin let out a low whistle when he saw the garden. “It’s - different,” he hazarded. He seemed hesitant to say more. She knew what he meant.

Dickon didn't say anything - which was normal, these days. She was still getting used to this new Dickon - quiet and watchful, reminding her of nothing more than one of the wild animals he used to coax into gentleness. It seemed surreal, to think that Dickon had been a soldier in a war, had carried a bayonet with the same hands she had seen tenderly cradle the smallest of creatures.

"A lot of things are different," she said. She leant over to pick up some stray twigs, which gave her a moment to smooth her expression.

She'd ripped out most of the flowers after Colin had left for the war. It hadn't felt like a time for flowers anymore, and even then she was already turning the idea of the convalescent home over in her mind, planning for all the new mouths to feed. Her uncle had left Misselthwaite to Colin, and Colin had charged her with taking care of it while he was away - and although the kitchen-gardens were fine for the household's needs, she knew with more mouths to feed, they would need more food to be grown. Any surplus they had, they could share with the rest of the village. 

In place of the flowers were vegetables, cabbages and potatoes and onions. Herbs bordered the garden - thyme and mint and parsley. Planting the vegetables in this garden had felt oddly solemn - like the end of her childhood, and the start of something else.  _"_ You can't  _eat_ flowers," she had reminded herself sternly.  

The roses had remained. As she had explained to Mrs Sowerby, "There are some things that simply feed your soul."  
  
She knew beneath her feet, other bulbs lay dormant in the earth, and someday soon they would bloom again.

*

Last week when the train carrying Dickon had pulled in at Thwaite Station, Mary had been waiting for him. Colin hadn't been well enough yet to leave the house, although he'd wanted to be there too While she’d been waiting, she couldn’t help but remember arriving here as a child, with Mrs Medlock - before she knew what a moor was, before she had ever known what it was to love and be loved. 

She'd loved Dickon from Martha's first description of him; this mysterious boy who had befriended a wild mood pony. The first thing she had ever heard said about Dickon was that he was kind. 

She didn't imagine that there had been much room for kindness, in war. 

Her father had been a captain in the British army. Somewhere in her trunk were the braid and gold bars of his uniform, which some thoughtful lieutenant had tucked into her suitcase when they were packing her things to leave India. She had never really known her father, but she wondered what he would have thought of this war that her generation had grown up into.

Dickon’s brother-in-law was another of the soldiers that would never return home. Martha was a widow now - Mary saw her sometimes, in the village, garbed in black. And of the twelve that had grown up in that cottage, Phil and Anthony would never return there. Phil had been in the same platoon as Dickon. 

Mrs Crawford had written to her - Basil had died, on some French battlefield. She remembered the way he'd teased her, called her Mistress Mary Quite Contrary. 

So many of the boys Mary had grown up with - lost to a war. 

She thought of India, which now felt to her like nothing more than a distant dream. Stronger than her memories of the country itself was the feeling of how it had felt to wake up alone and realise everybody that you knew had died in the night. As a child, she’d been so used to being the centre of her own universe that it hadn’t felt as much like the world entire had fallen away - instead, she’d gone and found a new world - a wider one. Dicken was one of the people most responsible for opening up the world to her, and in turn, to Colin.

Dickon was one of the last to disembark from the train. He still looked the picture of health - a strapping young man, in the prime of his youth, a rosy flush to his cheeks, the same upturned nose. The only thing missing was the wide grin, and his face didn't look the same without it - for the first time, she realised what Martha meant, about his mouth being too large. She'd never noticed before, because it had always been smiling so widely that she'd had no choice but to smile back. 

During the war, she’d worried about Dickon in a general way - _was he warm enough, was he getting enough to eat_ \- but it was his condition that had concerned her, rather than his absolute safety. She’d somehow known, down to her bones, that he would return.

She just hadn’t realised how much of himself he’d leave behind; what stranger would come back in his place.

Dickon didn't smile anymore, and it broke her heart. 

*

Now that Colin was feeling a bit better, he had somehow coaxed Dickon to accompany them to visit their garden. 

As they sat in the garden, Mary glanced across at Dickon, who was busying himself unpacking the picnic that Mrs Matlock had sent with them. It reminded her of all the secret picnics they’d enjoyed in past years, in this garden. Dickon had been the one to supply the picnics then, courtesy of his mother. 

It seemed like a very long time ago now - almost as far away as India.

When she looked closer, past the muscled arms, the thatch of rust-coloured hair, the wide clear blue eyes, she could see the sadness reflected there, the guilt that was suffocating him.

She realised that in the time she’d been studying him, he’d been studying Colin. It seemed their brief excursion had already tired him: he was now dozing in his chair.

"It should have been me," said Dickon in an undertone, and she didn’t know if he was talking about Colin, or his brothers Phil, or any of the other men he’d served with who would never come home. Perhaps he was talking about them all.

"It shouldn't have been any of you," said Mary tartly. 

Dickon shook his head. "I didn't get hurt."

His hands flexed, and Mary thought to herself - _oh, didn't you?_  - because she loved him enough that she could see just how hurt he was, which meant she also loved him too much to say it out loud. 

Instead, her mouth set in a peevish line, and the childish petulance that she had for the most part learnt to tame found its escape - “Why, Dickon, it’s like you _wish_ you’d returned missing a leg or an arm.”

He still wouldn’t look at her. 

“There’s more than one way to be hurt,” she said.

She remembered the afternoon that they had first stepped into this garden; how Dickon had taught her the secrets of how to discern the signs of life amongst a garden seemingly in ruins, to divine what was still alive, what still had the potential to grow. 

Beside him on the ground was his pocket knife. She picked it up, and reached for his hand. He let her, trusting her even now. Before he could react, she cut a clean line across his palm. His eyes widened in startlement, and they both watched the crimson as it quickly welled up. 

"There," she said. "You see that, that means you're alive, and that cut will heal soon. You may feel dead inside, but I promise you, you're not. You're still wick. You are the one that taught me to see that."

Suddenly he was sobbing, and she didn’t know what to do with that apart from be there beside him. This was the problem with having such a big heart, she supposed - there was so much of it to break. And it was surely breaking now, but she had seen this whole garden come to life once before. This was a place where miracles could and would happen - but it didn’t meant that tragedy hadn’t occurred here too. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the place where the ill-fated branch had broken off, twenty years ago now, causing the accident that had claimed Colin's laughing mother too soon - and yet this same garden was also where Colin had learnt to walk again, and had run exultant, laughing and whole into the arms of his father. 

That was life, she supposed - sunshine and rain side by side, and together by some strange alchemy living things bloomed, and grew - roots tangling deep into the earth, wrapping around each other for support as they reached together towards the light.  

She caught Colin’s eye and realised he was awake - she wondered if he’d ever actually been asleep at all. He pointed above them and she looked up to where he was gesturing.

There on the branch above them was the most brilliant red-breasted robin - and as she watched, her eyes bright with tears, it took flight and circled high over their heads, before landing on the grass in front of Dickon. It stared at him, but did not land on his shoulder as it may have in years past - however it did tilt its head and stare at him assessingly, and then, as if he had passed some invisible test, let out a trill of approval.  

After a long moment, Dickon pursed his lips, and answered it in its own language. 

When she looked over at Colin, his eyes were shining, and she knew that he too felt the magic all around them, just as she had felt it on that very first day - the glimpse of green budding amongst what had looked like dead wood. 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
